Quote for the day

We live in a country in epistemological crisis, in which much of the Republican Party has become detached from reality.

David Brooks, The New York Times

Just so’s you know, epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with what we know, and how we know that we know it.

Nobody should be particularly surprised that we’re in this dilemma. Think back to all the times you’ve heard some preacher howling and bellowing that, No, he can’t prove that Our Invisible Friend is real, or that He wants us to do this or that — you’ve got to have faith, you’ve got to believe without evidence. That is a demand for abandonment of epistemic standards — and evangelicals, the largest and most important faction of the loony right, are the people who listen to that slop and think it’s a virtue to believe without evidence.

No kidding: The descent of the GOP into lunacy is the fulfillment of Christianity’s epistemic ideal.

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